Unemployment in Greece has risen to a near-record high as workers prepare for a two-day general strike to protest plans to cut salaries and fire 30,000 government workers.

The Greek government Tuesday said the jobless rate hit 16.5 percent in July, just a shade below the record set in May. Young workers were the hardest hit, with two in five without a job.

The unemployment report came as a wave of work stoppages engulfed Greece ahead of a planned general strike Wednesday and Thursday. Greek ships remain moored in harbors and garbage is rotting on the streets of Athens. Train workers, journalists and others have walked off their jobs.

Prime Minister George Papandreou has implored parliament to pass a new austerity plan so that the country’s international creditors will hand Greece another payment from last year’s $159 billion bailout. Greece says it will default without the payment.

Some lawmakers from Mr. Papandreou’s Socialist party oppose the austerity measures, which includes tax increases and changes to collective bargaining rules. Previous spending cuts failed to make a dent in Greece’s massive debt, which stands at 162 percent of its economic output.

Unions in another financially troubled country, Portugal, have called for another nationwide general strike. Union leaders are upset that the government plans more spending cuts, including cuts in civil service pay.

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has called the country’s financial state a national emergency. The spending cuts and tax increases are conditions of Portugal’s $108 billion bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.